Duo jailed for robbery ... $24k booty still missing

Duo jailed for robbery ... $24k booty still missing

Peter Hardwick
Journalist
Peter started in 1976 as apprentice typesetter/comp and has 32 years with The Chronicle in three stints (in between working/holidays in UK/Europe, Brisbane and Melbourne). Entered editorial from comp room in 1996.

TWO people who admitted their respective roles in the armed robbery of a pub which netted $24,000 in cash have been jailed after pleading guilty before Toowoomba District Court.

Tyler James Henriksen and Charlotte Elizabeth Rushby were both 20 when they robbed the Railway Hotel in Goondiwindi in the early hours of February 23 last year.

Crown prosecutor Kathleen Millican told the court the pair and another co-offender had donned balaclavas and lay in wait in the pub's kitchen for 90 minutes for hotel staff to close up.

About 1.20am, as staff counted the night's poker machine takings, they heard a noise in the kitchen and went to investigate.

When Henriksen produced a toy gun, the staff ran, but were chased by the intruders.

One staffer got away to raise the alarm, but an 18-year-old woman was grabbed and dragged back inside the pub terrified.

Traumatised by the events, neither employee has been able to work since, the court heard.

None of the $24,000 stolen had been recovered.

Judge Deborah Richards noted Rushby had no previous convictions while Henriksen had a criminal history but no prior offences of violence.

Henriksen had spent 15 months in custody since his arrest which Judge Richards said she would take into account when deciding penalty.

Rushby, who had no pre-sentence custody, had taken steps to rehabilitate herself from the drug problem she had at the time of the robbery, she said.

Judge Richards said ordinarily she would impose a head sentence of five years jail on Henriksen, but taking into account the time spent in custody she sentenced him to three years and nine months jail, the term to be suspended after he has served another three months, then to be subject to three years probation.

Rushby was sentenced to four years jail, the term to be suspended after having served six months on condition she not re-offend within five years.